Sunday, 1 April 2012

New CRiSP Features coming

CRiSP has had an impressive life - starting out as an editor onMSDOS-3.0. It has been updated to run on all CPUs, operating systemsand platforms - from 16-bit to 80-bit processors (yes, 80, it was portedto the CRAY-1).

I am just finalising some new features (document map, annotation window),and a new feature, which some people may find useful - file-saving.

Until recently, you could use CRiSP to view files and explore aspectsof the files and directories, such as cross-referencing. You hadthe ability to do infinite-undo (years before anyone else could do thesame), and CRiSP was the first syntax coloring editor on the Unix platform.

But the new feature means that as well as editing your files, you can nowsave them. Previously, you could load a file, and make changes. On yournext session, you could make additional changes, but only as long as youremade the prior sessions edits.

When storing files in source code control systems, and building newversions of software, having to type in your edits repeatedly, wasa slight problem. (CRiSP has a fast-autorepeat, so this helped enormouslywhen scrolling to relevant parts of a buffer).

With the "File/Save" feature (which no other editor on the market yetsupports, although I am guessing some will try to copy CRiSP's unique traits),your files are saved, permanently. When you return to editing, CRiSPwill be able to retrieve the last modified file.

Its taken a while to get this feature working properly, and had medoing some research into various algorithms which allow for file saving.(Many of the algorithms are quite technical, and caused me much *grief*trying to get all permutations working).

The first file-saving implementation is geared around Cellular automata(otherwise known as "Paper"). With this, you commit your changes to paper,and when you restart CRiSP, you no longer have to remember what changesyou have made, since the "Paper" copy will let you see immediately. Theadvantage of this "cellular" technology is that you can keep older versionsof the files you have saved.